Cultural Affordances and Social Media

Abstract

This paper first reviews the development and application of affordances theory in the field of social media studies. Then, it examines the significance and limitations of the original meaning of affordances of the environment that is provided by American psychologist James Gibson. The paper argues that the cultural aspect of affordances has been understated and should be included as part of affordances theory. To enrich theoretical understanding of affordances and further facilitate empirical studies of social media affordances, the paper offers a novel definition of cultural affordances that bridges cultural studies and social media studies. The new definition of cultural affordances includes two layers, which are cultural affordances of technology and affordances of the cultural. Later, the paper provides examples to showcase how this novel definition can be applied in prior empirical studies with a focus on WeChat. 2. Social Media Affordances: Divergence and Convergence 2.1. Platform-centered Social Media Affordance Prior studies of affordances of ICTs demonstrate a tendency to centralize properties of a technology and focus on how it affects social interaction [37, 38, 93]. Gaver [25] defines technology affordances as independent, inherent, and physical properties of an object that are compatible with a user for possible action. Wellman et al. [94] states that affordances of the Internet, such as boarder bandwidth, portability, connectivity, facilitate networked individualism. Kreijin [46] states that social affordances are properties in a computer-mediated environment that facilitates learners' social interaction. Research demonstrates the same inclination when developing the theory of affordances in the field of social media studies. Graves [26] claims that read input, fixity and juxtaposition are the affordances of blogging, which have "a democratizing influence … making journalists more accountable to their audiences" (p.344). boyd [10] argues that networked technology inducts structural

On Semiotics Perspectives of Computational Thinking: Unravelling the “Pamphlet” Approach, a Case Study

“…However, in the case of CT, we are faced with a complex phenomenon based on cultural, social, technical and political discourses. In this case, the meaning of affordances is more complex and includes various interdisciplinary aspects (see, e.g., [71]). The perception of CT affordances enables the transition to a meta-level that explicitly highlights the socio-cultural aspects of the CT semiotic competences in the resources being designed.…”

Defining affordances in social media research: A literature review

“…Although there have been efforts to systematise knowledge on affordances or the use of the affordances theory in a specific domain (cf. Hollenbaugh, 2021; Stewart, 2015; Sun and Suthers, 2021), with the exception of a conference paper that was never developed into a full paper (Hafezieh and Eshraghian, 2017), we know of no recent systematic literature review undertaken in the domain of social media.…”